> > > Some people think that the pre-industrial world was somehow nicer and more leisurely. The simple fact is that life in almost every age of the world before this one was brutal and short. Disease was rampant, work was physically back-breaking, and the average life expectancy was half or less what it is today.
> > >
> > > You have to go back to the Garden of Eden (if you believe in such things) to find a time when life was "better" in any qualitative way than it is today.
> >
> > Tangent time. While the Garden of Eden was perfect, does that necessarily mean life was easy? That is, is perfection effortless? That would seem to make effort imperfect. Nah, I think I'm wrong here. "Not easy" isn't the same as "difficult."
> >
> > gab"I can just argue with myself, because this discussion is currently on the 134th page."by
>
> Sorry, I can't allow you to believe that you're just going to sit here and argue with yourself, that would be sad. Perfection may or may not require effort. [...]

If the Garden of Eden is a model for what we would consider "perfection" in life, then human existence, even there, was not without effort. Genesis recounts that after God created Adam and Eve, he blessed them and immediately commanded them to work: to procreate, to fill the earth and subdue it, and to name all living creatures and have stewardship over all living things. So if God himself thought these actions were useful activities even in Eden, I think we can safely assume that even perfect work performed under his guidance will require effort on our part. And it suggests a window into the affairs of the eternal life: that in Heaven, work will still exist, and perhaps even greater challenges will be there for us to face.